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Thursday, January 6, 2011

I stopped at a rather new place in Franschhoek this morning for breakfast. After my last breakfast review where the BigBlu restaurant scored a perfect ten I was thinking that the search was finally off. A friend told me he actually reads my reviews and that I shouldn't stop writing. This made me think that if I write for one person then at least I am not totally wasting my time. So, even though my stop this morning was not for a review but rather because I was looking for something to eat, I did take some pictures and looked for the "budget" breakfast on the menu. I was actually a bit disappointed, because the breakfast items on the menu was very limited to say the least. There were actually only 3 options; muesli, scrambled eggs and croissants. There are one or two things that you could add to that, but nothing to make it a proper breakfast in the true sense of the word. Or at least not with the ingredients that I want in my breakfast. Even when an omelet was ordered we were told that it cannot be made. They can make omelets in the most basic restaurants in West Africa but they cannot make it in a fancy restaurant in Franschoek? Strange.

I heard a comedian on TV the other night who said that if you want to add ambiance to a restaurant, all you have to do is get rid of the poor people. The way you do that is to make the menu very expensive so that only rich people eat there and there you have created "ambiance". After this morning's breakfast I am sure there are other ways to do that as well. Apart from making the choices very expensive, you can minimize the menu to only a few items and then serve it on some kind of weird looking plate. If you can decorate the small portion of food in such a way that it looks like some kind of artistic expression, then you have your ambiance. BICCS restaurant was like that this morning. OK, the scrambled eggs did taste nice on one slice of ciabata toasts (the menu said TWO slices, but they were so small it can only go through as ONE). But I was not impressed with the way it was presented and with the choices I had. Why do some places charge so much for two eggs, while other can give you 3 or 4 eggs for the same price? Is it only because the place is situated in Franschhoek where the rich hangs out or the wealthy foreigners who believe South Africans are "very fortunate to live in a country which have the cheapest beer in the world"? I don't know, but I cannot see BICCCS restaurant score more than 4 on my review. And they get the 4 for their location, nothing much else.

I was looking on the Internet to see if I can find out what BICCCS stand for. What I found just made me shake my head in disbelieve. It was a competition where you can "WIN A MEAL AT BICCCS!" And this comes from "EAT OUT" magazine claiming to be "The only restaurant guide you will ever need". This is how they describe the breakfast at BICCCS:

"Win a meal at BICCCS (short for Bread, Icecream, Cake, Croissant, Coffee). Breakfast won't be the same without BICCCS' creamy scrambled eggs and beautifully fresh bread. The menu is abbreviated but there's more than enough to choose from."

﻿

"Sorry Sir, no omelets"

"Abbreviated"? I agree. ﻿"More than enough to choose from"? I doubt very much, especially after my first comment when I opened the menu was "There's not much to choose from". At least I know now what "BICCCS" stands for, but believe me, the place did not make the cut at all. Which brings me to my next question. "Who does EAT OUT write reviews for? Is it for people who wants to think they have style and only eat at restaurants with "ambiance", or for plain fools who believe everything they read? But hey, why would anyone value MY opinion? Go check it out for yourself. You don't have to bypass this restaurant on your next trip to Franschhoek. If you actually like the place then you are one of the many people who have actually given this lousy menu a 5-star rating. Maybe I just don't have style and don't appreciate "ambiance", but at least I know when someone is taking me for a ride....and next time when I am in Franschhoek I will definitely ride past and try the next restaurant.

1 comment:

I had lunch at this place a while ago, and was extremely disappointed. What a beautiful little venue, especially outside under the trees, but the service was shocking. I got the impression that the waiter that we had, had just been taken off the street and given an apron, and expected to do the job. what a let-down. I definitely won't go back again.

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